Ken McMeikan said ministers did not appreciate the impact changes to VAT rules would have on ordinary people.

However David Cameron said the VAT rise was designed to ensure small bakers were not unfairly undercut by some of the larger chain stores and supermarkets.

"It was [the then chancellor] Nigel Lawson who over 20 years ago put VAT on hot takeaway food," he said. "A number of businesses are trying to find ways around that rule."

He added: "It's basically about trying to have a sensible set of VAT arrangements."

"I don't think it's fair, for instance, that the small businessman running the fried chicken takeaway is having to charge his customers VAT, but the big supermarket is not having to pay VAT for their fresh hot chickens."

Cameron revealed: "I am a pasty eater myself, I go to Cornwall on holiday, I love a hot pasty.

"I think the last one I bought was from the West Cornwall Pasty Company. I seem to remember I was in Leeds station at the time and the choice was whether to have one of their small ones or large ones, and I have a feeling I opted for the large one and very good it was too."

However following prime minister's statement much of the political press set off hot on the trail of the specific pasty shop Cameron claimed to have visited.

Suspicions were aroused that there had not been a West Cornwall Pasty Company at Leeds station for some time.

Not wanting to miss an opportunity to pick up some political points, Labour's shadow chief secretary to the Treasury let it be known that she and the shadow chancellor and Labour leader were big fans of baked goods.

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This happened after the 2008 Labour party conference, during which Gordon Brown made his famous "no time for a novice" comment.
David Miliband was rumoured to be mounting a leadership challenge. By the end of the conference he was reduced to posing with fruit.

Margaret Thatcher took school milk away from some schoolchildren in the 1980s, to save money.
People never forgot.

An otherwise tedious 2001 general election campaign was livened up when a man threw an egg at the then Deputy Prime Minister. Prezza responded by lamping his assailant, in what was judged to be a decent right hook.

The early 1990s BSE crisis prompted then environment secretary John Gummer to pose eating a beefburger, and the brute made his daughter chomp on one as well. Using your kids for political gain is never a good idea.

AP

But for the help of White House medics, the Iraq war may never have happened. George W Bush ended up fainting after choking on a pretzel in 2002, smacking his head on a table and ending up with a gash on the side of his face.